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Absolute Statements? Absolutely Not!

Published by aco on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 14:48

Our brains take in whatever we feed them. So, we need to stay away from "absolutes": never, can't, always, hate, wouldn't, couldn’t. If you say "I can never make any progress" your brain hears this and will eventually believe it. If you say "I always make a fool of myself" your brain hears that and eventually believes it, searching out ways to make your words come true. As those words come true, you fall further down into the anxiety trap.

Let's stay away from absolute talk, and go neutral instead. "Maybe I can make progress", "possibly" I can talk with a group of people in the future without anxiety...who knows? The more you can do this, the closer you will be to eventually going positive. Leave some opening for your brain to search for answers itself. Don't stop your brain before it can start working for you.

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The Social Anxiety Association

The Social Anxiety Association is a non-profit organization founded in 1997 to meet the growing needs of people with social anxiety. The SAA became inactive for several years due to lack of resources. We are in the process of re-doing our website, listing all active, structured CBT groups for social anxiety, and renewing all our licenses. Major changes will be happening by the end of 2013. We publish new web content -- concerning social anxiety -- almost daily on the site now.

The Social Anxiety Institute is the largest website on the internet about social anxiety disorder (social phobia). Therapy programs have run at the Institute full-time since 1994. Major new help for overcoming social anxiety is under development and will be introduced in 2013.

Guidelines for listing social anxiety groups on this site. We cannot officially endorse groups, so check them out thoroughly. We ask that they be groups that are operating, have a definite leader, and are thoroughly structured. Social anxiety therapy groups are very different than the groups that operate for other mental health conditions.